Parental Guidelines: Empower the Socially Challenged

  1. Develop P.M.A. (positive mental attitude). It’s crucial that you believe change is possible. Ask yourself, “What will happen if this problem is not resolved?” Ask yourself, “How will things be different when the problem is resolved?”
  2. Create productive diagnostics. Usually there are layers to the problem including obsessive worry, anxiety, avoidance, over-dependence, and self –esteem problems. Often depression is present, or developing. To assist with diagnostics you may want to use our social-abilty questionnaire, and parent addiction profile (for small children).
  3. Make an educated decision regarding your ability to resolve the problem via self-help, or if you need parenting therapy.
  4. Define “nurturing” as providing support and promoting growth; not rescuing.
  5. Take action. Don’t wait for your child to ask for help because this is not going to happen. Don’t invest in the belief that he/she will “grow out of it”.
  6. Make sure parents are on the same “team” with parenting strategy for facilitating change. Fragmented parenting often breeds social anxiety and over-dependence.
  7.  Identify the ways your child is overly dependent on you. Study the dependence and avoidance profiles.
  8. Understand that “enabling” means any behavior on the part of the caregiver which inhibits the growth or potential of the child”.
  9.  Implement a non-enabling methodology; one step at a time. Differentiate between short and long term objectives.
  10. Understand that non-enabling creates stress, which is defined as “adaptation”.
  11. Therefore; have realistic expectations. Your dependent is not going to say “thank you” to the non-enabling process.
  12. In fact resistance will occur. You need to learn strategies for negotiating the “temper tantrum” (literally or metaphorically) of your dependent.
  13. You will need to manage your own emotions and anxiety to sustain an empowering process.
  14.  Parents need to support each other through this process.
  15. Re-interpreting your child’s discomfort as an opportunity for growth is essential (while providing support and insight to your child).
  16. Help your child identify thoughts and feelings.
  17. Help your child develop an emotional vocabulary.
  18. Help your child develop reasoning skills.
  19. Follow through.
  20. Keep following through.

Self-Help and Treatment Options